Sunday, June 14, 2009

At the arboretum: a special spot for the Rosie and Porridge fan club...

Rosie said she wanted to feature on Out with Mol, but it was such a treat to see her and Porridge again I thought they deserved more than 30 words.

Porridge has, it seems, been a rather subdued since being attacked by the Beauceron from Hell, which is a crying shame, for such a buoyant, open and friendly character ( we have often discussed how if she were a Jane Austen character she would almost certainly be Lydia Bennett...)

Molly and the Quessoy arboretum were, it was thought, unthreatening, safe and clean enough for her at the moment. Molly is probably quite fond of Porridge in her own way; she tends to adopt a rather Goody-Two-Shoes attitude in her company 'oh look Mum, Porridge is being naughty again, I don't do things like that do I?', while half hankering to follow her into mud, water, cow slurry or whatever other trouble she can find.

One of the problems with trying to photograph Porridge is she's always heading off at speed, and one often just captures her retreating back.

On the way round, we met a couple more fetching blondes,

and a burnet moth.

Porridge was quite herself again, and a merry time was had by all.

(One shouldn't really take pictures of people chatting and laughing, as their mouths do rather strange things, but I did like the way their expressions were mirroring one another. It always amuses me when we go out with these two how stereotypically we all do the dogs-and-their-owners thing: Rosie and Porridge being tall,blonde, elegant and gorgeous, while Mol and I are squat, dishevelled, chaotic and greying round the muzzle...)

The last time you rolledI clung to your fur, lookingout for the things youpick up doing that,like the weeds, seeds, dung, dirt and the detritusof your longer rompswith the one who gave us thisstrange, wonderful life.

TG - I think we had this conversation didn't we? No, I'm not actually talking about facial hair, things aren't that bad, I was applying the analogy loosely...

Dave - yes, that's Tom's favourite too!

Zhoen - heheheh, this is actually a prime example of anthropomorphic dog owners mis-attributing thoughts and sentiments as you described. But it's fun.

Joe - yep, that's our girls!

Christopher - that's great. Only you could turn that to that!

Smoke-Swallow - well, cats don't quite have the same amount of variation in shape and size, but it must apply to some extent...

Rosie - so glad to hear it!

RB - well, just between ourselves, she's not really called Porridgem that's her blogging pseudonym! But Rosie, who isn't called rosie either, says if she'd thought of it at the time, she would have called her that...

I love the description of Porridge being a bit like Lydia Bennett! I can just imagine her now: bouncy and rather heedless, but so good-natured. Probably not much inclined to regret, either . . . even if she gets in the muck.

The ponies are so pretty, too, and the pics of Porridge and Rosie so funny.

A dog with a pseudonym! I had never thought of disguising the identities of our cats. Intriguing. I'm also intrigued by the idea of your being squat. I'm sure you aren't really, but I'd imagined you as lean and rangy. I myself am short and plump. Alas.

Perhaps there's a bit of Lydia B. in most dogs--all that running off and getting into trouble and then bare-facedly brazening out the family, sure that they'll still be welcome no matter what bad company they keep.